The Only Film Director ever
indicted for 'Crimes Against Humanity'
---for the Infamous Jud Süss
Propaganda Film -- Answers His Critics

Exclusive IHF Release!

Jud Süss (Germany, 1940) is one of the most infamous propaganda films ever made, and remains taboo to this day. Its director, Veit Harlan, survived the collapse of the Third Reich but was charged with “Crimes against Humanity” in two public trials in both 1948 and 1950 in the early years of the West German Republic. Though acquitted twice, Harlan was forever tainted for his work as both script-writer and director of this film. His own memoirs were entitled In the Shadow of my Films.

His two trials threatened him with prison terms and large fines, as well as a ban on further film- making. His testimony was carefully considered and presented; given the consequences. Harlan’s memoirs were written twenty years after the war, and published posthumously. This manuscript, however, was written in the dying days of the Third Reich, and mimeographed in an edition of sixty copies, personally signed and posted by Harlan to friends, colleagues, and foreign critics in May 1945. It has an immediacy and tone missing from later testimony and recollections of these historic days.

Until now, no English translation of this seminal document on Harlan and his role in writing and directing Jud Süss has been available. Few original copies of this Testament are still extant, and all but one reside in film archives hidden away from film students, Germany history students, and the general public.

Jud Süss was seen by over twenty million people in Nazi Europe and was one of the highest grossing box office hits of the Third Reich in both occupied and unoccupied countries. Three rare original full-color posters from Italy, France and Belgium are reproduced in this booklet to complement the text.

The complete English translation is printed along with the facsimile pages of the original German manuscript.